I would like to preface this with I enjoy Nuclear Escalation. It’s a hell of a step up from Air RB, but it’s bleeding interest rapidly and needs Gaijin to show that they’re listening to feedback before the playerbase of it vanishes completely. Figures I quote are just from Google - they do not need to be precise here, they just need to get the point across.
Nuclear Escalation is a fundamentally good gamemode, but its biggest problem is not that the AA feels overpowered, or that its rewards are too low - though I’m not denying those are problems. I think it suffers most from having machines of war fighting in circumstances that do not realistically reflect the environment in which they would be employed.
I’ll talk about top tier here, as I feel that is where these problems are most prevalent. That does not mean they are not applicable to lower battle ratings. I am ordering my points in what I perceive to be the most important. You may (and should) disagree - I am not a magic machine that can summarize (or even understand) the views of the entire playerbase. I am just one player.
Distances
Just looking at the map, the distance between friendly airfields is ~50km. Whilst on paper that may seem okay, that is an abysmal distance. The distance from the nearest frontline unit to the airfields are just over half of that distance, with the actual “no man’s land” of the frontlines being only ~8km. If we discount kills from the Ukraine war (which we shouldn’t, given these are stationary hardpoints) that places the tanks within a few minutes drive of being able to engage one another. That is far too close.
Proposed fix:
Move the frontline back. Like, double the distance back. Move the airfields back a touch if necessary, but 8km distance between the furthest forward friendly & enemy units is not enough. At all.
SAMs (generalized)
As one example, Ito-90Ms are ~$12 million apiece (2S6 costs more). According to the map design, the blues spend ~$36 million per depot protecting 6 depots. That’s ~$216 million dollars on their frontline, approximately 12km away from the nearest enemy strongpoint. Seriously?
Proposed fix:
Either move vehicle production further back and replace these depots with garrisons that are actually fighting a conflict, or replace the SPAA.
Only 3 ground target types
You can either target convoys, long range SAMs or depots. Where is the actual war fighting assets? Where are the command and control positions? Where is the ability to disrupt enemy communications? Where are the power generation facilities for these depots?
Proposed fix:
Give us something to use bunker busters on. Let us make the rounds more dynamic by disrupting communications. For aircraft that have access to GBU-10s and GBU-24s, it’s a purely cosmetic difference and has no terminal impact. In a gamemode that is supposed to be a nuclear confrontation, that feels wrong.
Long Range SAMs
Enemy long range SAMs sit ~40km from the nearest airfield. The S-300 has a range of 200km. The SAMP/T has a range of 100km. They are sitting less than half their engagement distance away. ARH missiles are an option for eliminating these, but without EW/Jammers, it is simply not possible to get close enough to them to use the ARH missiles in their realistic distances. Real world strategies should not be applied for eliminating targets like these when we do not have real world technologies that are instrumental in those tactics.
Proposed fix:
If these SAMs won’t be moved further back, there needs to be more options for getting closer to them. Jammers are sorely missing from this mode.
Conclusion
I think Gaijin do truly care about this gamemode, but I do not think that they are communicating their long term intentions on making the mode more fun for players. Adding helicopters, cargo aircraft and such are all very well and good (and I would welcome them, for one), but people need to want to actually play your gamemode for the amount of development time these things take to have any sort of payoff.
I would like to call for a direct response to this post from Gaijin. Whilst I appreciate there may be internal discussions happening about the direction of this mode, the players have had radio silence when it comes to how Gaijin are listening to our feedback and improving the quality of life in the gamemode rather than just adding shiny new things that take more development time for less impact. If Gaijin want us to engage in the long term vision for the mode, the short term needs to be made better.